Guess Who Came Home With Us?

A few days ago, on Friday, we drove into our little town to go to the post office, take the trash to the dumpsters and buy some livestock feed. As we made our rounds, we drove down a road out on the edge of town and found a passel of kittens in the road. We slowed way down and honked the

horn to get them to move out of the way so we wouldn’t run over them. The owner came out and thanked us for slowing down. As we went on down the road a short way, Frank looked at me and said, “Do you want some kittens?” We had been talking about the need for more cats. We have noticed more mice and rats lately. One ran out of the hay in the barn when I was picking up an armload a few days ago. We pondered for a few short seconds, and I said, “Yes.” So Frank slowly backed down the road and asked the owner if he was looking for new homes for the kittens. He quickly offered all we wanted. We completed our rounds, had some lunch, loaded up our small pet carrier and headed back into town.

One thing we had noticed about some of the kittens, was some goo in their eyes. The owner indicated he thought it was allergies and he had been putting allergy eye drops for people in their eyes. I thought it was more on the lines of pink eye. We initially didn’t plan on getting any with gooey eyes, but ended up with two of them. The kittens are also thinner than they should be at this age. We have some eye ointment made for pinkeye which I started using the day we brought them home. Within a day and a half their eyes cleared up.

Since we have three adult cats, we keep new kittens in a large dog sized pet carrier on the porch until they have a chance to become familiar with their new surroundings and we feel they will be safe. We let them out for longer and longer periods of time during the day until they have adjusted. We will continue to pen them up at night for a while to keep them safe from other critters that wouldn’t mind having kitty bits for a midnight snack. We keep a clean layer of hay inside and a large rubber mat over the top and down across the north end to block off most of the wind. It will be a big help when the gusty north winds come blowing in tonight.

We took the kittens to the vet today, Monday afternoon, for an overall checkup, their first shots and worming. When they’re about six months old, we will have them neutered and spayed. I think right now they’re about six to eight weeks old. The previous owner wasn’t sure of their age.

One of them has a viral infection in a lymph node, but everyone else is okay. I’m glad we were able to get them wormed today. A couple of them have rough coats, instead of a nice slick coat, so they were in need of a good worming and good nutrition. Tonight we started adding a scrambled egg to their diet. In the morning they we will introduce milk. This will give them a little extra protein and added nutrition to get them off on a good start.  

So, without further ado, let me introduce you to our new critters.

We hope they turn out to be good mousers since all of our animals have a job to do and have to earn their keep. An added bonus to getting more than one kitten is watching them play. I expect to have many a good laugh watching these little guys grow up. We have high expectations for our new kitties. They will be loved, well fed, well taken care of, medicated when necessary, and provided a warm safe place to sleep and dream kitty dreams.

It’s interesting how things in life work out. We had been talking about getting more cats for a number of months, but things just didn’t work out. Then, Friday, when the time was right, we just happened to drive down a little side road full of kittens. And here we are, November, cold weather is coming, and a cat house (dog house) full of kittens. Life is good.

Until next time – Fern